In 1939, Wang Xiangzhai issued a public challenge through a Beijing newspaper. His objective: to test and prove the new martial arts training system of Yiquan, a system that placed standing meditation (zhan zhuang) at its core.
Expert fighters from across China, Japan and even Europe traveled to answer Wang’s challenge. None could beat him or his senior students. His standing meditation training produced superior results in a shorter time period, when compared to methods used in boxing, Judo, and other styles of Kung Fu.
Interested?
Here is a very good series of videos by a teacher called Mark S. Cohen explaining the posture and breathing during the standing meditation.
I particularly like the bit at the end of the last video when the teacher says: for healing you should do this for at least 40 minutes a day. For martial arts training you have to do this for at least an hour every day.
Kung fu does mean hard work after all.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Here is also a video by Bruce Frantzis, talking about the different stages of taoist meditation.
Watch video
This is an introduction to an online course. You can subscribe to this course here:
